Where my demons hide
by potterbite
Summary: How is Stiles connected to the series of murders that has been happening in Beacon Hills? What happens when dreams and reality gets pushed together? And why is Derek suddenly so worried about Stiles? [Set after 316]
1. Demons

**What do I do when my demons come and get me?**

* * *

Stiles wandered – or rather, lurked – through the forest, trying to find his way in the most silent way he could. But with Stiles being not the most graceful person on the planet, his lurking looked like something from a cartoon and he kept walking on branches that made a loud snapping sound, to which Stiles flinched.

Man, he really needed to work on his stalking techniques. Maybe there was some kind of book on that, like Stalking Quietly 101. Although that would be kind of an opening to real life stalkers, so maybe it didn't exist after all. He'd have to ask Scott how he did it – or better yet, with Derek being the number one creeper in town, maybe he could ask him. If only Derek ever came within twenty feet –

"Stiles," a voice suddenly said, making him jump high up in the air, arms flailing about. Well that was great, just fucking great. Not even this was something he could do well, apparently.

"Jesus, why don't you just kill me and get it over with?" he said with a hand on his chest as he walked through some bushes.

He entered a clearing where everyone in Scott's pack was present; when he saw Allison next to Isaac, and Lydia next to Aiden, he had to bite his cheek from not swearing (although he could not hold back the wince). Not only had he just been busted trying to listen in on a pack meeting, but apparently he was the only human not wanted there. He wasn't stupid – far from it – so it was as if everyone suddenly screamed at him to go away.

A loud sigh snapped him out of it. "What are you doing here, Stiles?" Of course it was Derek who spoke; it was always he who was fed up with Stiles' shit, no matter if he was an alpha or not.

"Exercise. I recently learned it's good for the heart, and I really don't want to deal with anything later – "

"_Stiles_," Derek said through gritted teeth, still not looking at him.

"My name sure is easy on the lips. If you say it fast enough more than ten times in a row – well, I'm all for no spoilers so just try it sometime, it'll be worth it." When nobody said anything, he pressed his lips together – hard – before licking them, and started to wobble his head back and forth, tapping his fingers on his thigh.

He probably shouldn't have skipped his last Adderall in favor of going out alone in the woods. At night. When his father was working. With some creepy ass demon cult-thingy on the loose. And with nobody to protect him.

Okay, so maybe Stiles had plans with faults in them just as much as the next guy – or werewolf.

Everyone was staring at him like he was a lunatic. Crap. Had he been speaking out loud again? His brain worked too fast for him to manage.

He grinned a sheepish grin at them and gave a small shrug.

"What are you doing here Stiles?" It was Scott who spoke this time, repeating Derek's question, and his voice was so serious Stiles forced himself to look at him, and as he did his grin washed off his face immediately.

"Nothing, apparently." He almost cringed at the pathetic sound of his own voice and kept watching Scott, which was why he didn't miss the small move Scott did towards him, and the indication of a headshake Isaac and Derek did at the same time. It only took seconds after that for Stiles to figure it out.

"Are you serious right now?! You think I'M a threat?" Everybody kept still, and he took the silence as confirmation. He nodded – a small movement, but with almost everyone present being a werewolf he knew they saw it – and decided to leave, but stopped after a few steps and angled his head towards the pack. "If anyone dies tonight, you know where to find me." He paused for a short moment, and continued in a quieter voice, "It's always my fault when somebody dies anyway."

Before he turned his head, he saw someone make a movement but he stopped caring when they started thinking of him as a murderer. Sure, the thought had graced his mind more than a few times in the past week, and the numbers on the board and the key was still a puzzle to him, but he had hoped his friends – or who he stupidly wished were his friends – would tell him he was being silly. Just being his regular goofy personality with some crazy idea that he was maybe murdering people, or at least calling the shots on who should die.

Feeling broken, he left the clearing with a big lump in his throat he always got when he thought about his mother's death. He swallowed, refused to give in to the tears until he knew he was out of hearing range from the wolves; when he reached his car, he was unable to get in because of his violently shaking hands so he sat down next to it and tried to remember how to breathe. He put up his knees, flung his arms around them and put his head in between his legs, hoping it would help, but knowing he could only wait it out.

It was in that position Derek found him less than a minute later, with tears on the verge of spilling from Stiles' eyes. Derek crouched down in front of him and looked at him so intense; Stiles did what he always did when he was uncomfortable.

"Are – you – going – to – kiss – me?" he asked in between breaths; Derek stared at him like he was behaving even stranger than he usually did – which, to be honest, he really were, and that's saying something.

"Am I – what?"

"Hello, I'm – mister – funny. A Joke." He shook his head. Inside his mind, he thought about the fact that Derek probably didn't see the funny in what he'd said because it had just been between him and Lydia, so he made a mental note to explain it on a sunny day.

With less oxygen in his brain than normally, his mind didn't seem to cooperate with his mouth, which was probably why he suddenly said, "It was my fault my mom died," and had to try even harder to continue breathing because the pain in his chest increased.

Fortunately, Derek seemed to ignore what Stiles had said and furrowed his brows a little, maybe out of concern; maybe because he wasn't sure Stiles was sane. "You need to breathe, deep breaths in your nose, and release it all through your mouth."

"How – "

"In," Derek said as he slowly closed his hand over Stiles mouth, forcing him to breathe through his nose. He did as Derek instructed, and tried not to think about how good his hand smelled, or how surprisingly soft it was.

"And out." Derek moved his hand from Stiles' mouth and used it to pinch Stiles' nose.

Stiles thought about the weirdness level of the situation and came to the conclusion that he was dreaming because there was no way that a real universe existed where Derek was this close to him, and actually being nice and treating him as a human being and not a punching bag.

Derek continued to help Stiles breathe until he had calmed down completely, at which point it was just the two of them being painfully close to each other with nothing to say. As Stiles tried to remember how to speak he made the mistake of meeting Derek's eyes – and was lost. He cursed himself, and thought, _damn, just when I thought I might be over the whole dark and brooding type_.

"Soooooo, thanks dude," Stiles said after a few more moments of awkward silence. He gave Derek a fist bump on his shoulder; Derek rolled his eyes.

"C'mon, Scott and I are going to explain everything to you."

He helped Stiles get up before he started walking back towards the clearing; Stiles waited a bit before he followed, and he thought about how ridiculous his life had become since the werewolves had entered it and how he really hoped he wasn't the one ordering people who to kill.

As he walked in the direction Derek had gone, a laugh filled the forest – one who made a chill go down Stiles' spine – but when he turned around to see if anyone was there, all he could see was darkness; he figured his head was playing a prank on him so he shrugged and vanished deeper into the forest.

When he was gone, a shadow appeared, looking in the direction he had taken.

"_Soon_."

* * *

**A/N: First time writing Sterek (and Teen Wolf), so any and all feeback is appreciated! :) And also, I MIGHT continue this, so if you're interested, please follow b/c it probably will happen :)**


	2. Nightmare

**Now your nightmare comes to life**

* * *

"Derek, finally," Scott called as soon as Derek came back to the clearing; Scott had ordered the rest of the pack to go home and get some sleep – a wise move. He frowned as Derek got closer. "Where's Stiles?"

Derek whirled around and saw nothing but trees; he cursed under his breath.

"How come you didn't know he wasn't there? Didn't you hear, oh I don't know, the silence that _wasn't_ his pulse?!"

"I – I was in my head, so I didn't listen." He frowned – he'd been thinking about Stiles and how oddly nice it had felt to be close to him, nothing he'd thought of or noticed before. "I just assumed – "

"ASSUMED? Are you new at this or what?" He sighed loudly at Derek, red flashing in his eyes; he took a calming breath and his eyes went back to normal – Derek made his frown deeper to hide how impressed he were at Scott's control. "We need to find him. NOW."

Even though Derek had a snide remark on the tip of his tongue, Scott's order made him stay quiet and instead think of ways to search for Stiles.

"I know his scent, but what about you?"

Derek hesitated for a moment before he grabbed a handful of his own shirt. "His smell is all over it."

Scott raised his eyebrows and tried to hide a small smile, but said nothing.

"Fine, we'll split up and I'll call the others for help on the way."

With a nod, they were off in different directions.

* * *

"_Run. You can't stop because they'll find you faster than you can say murderer,_" a voice hissed from the dark.

"But I'm innocent!" Stiles was frantic; he knew it was a nightmare just like so many others he'd had since they sacrificed themselves, but he was still frightened every single time because he could never wake up; his body did its own bidding even though he still seemed to have some control over it, his voice always carried panic and never any humor and they were always about his worst fears he never spoke out loud to anyone. When he did wake up from them, he was never sure he was actually awake – his dreams were always a dream within a dream within a dream that could go on forever, to the point where he actually lost his sanity and sense of reality. It was terrifying.

"_Are you really? Ask the dead what they think of it, shall we_?"

"NO!"

But his voice cracked and was quiet, despite his attempt to shout. Moments later a group of something humanlike appeared and started moving towards him. The pressure in his chest increased immensely when he recognized them all – especially one person.

"_It was your fault I had to die without John_," his mother's voice hissed in the same way the shadow had. "_I blame you for everything, Stiles_."

He cringed, and started chanting, hoping it would wake him up. "Not real, not real, not real."

"_I don't know how you can live with yourself for what you did. You deserve what's coming for you._" He knew logically it really weren't his mother speaking to him, but his heart still broke at her words – it was everything he always thought, except now it was coming from someone else. His eyes filled with tears he refused to let out.

"_I can't believe I actually wanted to lose my virginity to you_," Heather spat when his mother backed away. "_And look where it got me. Dead, all because of _you_."_

"But I had nothing to do with that!"

"_You keep telling yourself that, but it won't make it true_." An awful smile spread on her face. "_Will you never stop killing people?"_

"I've never killed anyone!"

The shadow laughed, and Heather disappeared as it spoke. "_Perhaps not by your own hands. Tell me, if you had acted differently – would everyone here still be dead?"_

Stiles did not reply, and the shadow laughed again.

* * *

Derek's phone rang in his pocket just as he was about to jump over a small river; if they hadn't been searching for Stiles, he wouldn't have picked up. He stopped himself mid-jump and answered with a grunt.

"Have you caught his scent anywhere?" Scott's voice said in the other end.

"No. You?"

"Nope. It's like he just vanished from thin air." He went quiet, and Derek was just about to hang up when he said, "I'm worried about him, Derek."

"I know," was all he replied while he was thinking _Me too Scott, me too_. "Have you talked to the others?"

"Yeah, no luck there either. Let's meet up at the loft."

* * *

When Stiles woke up – with a sore neck and back no less – it was broad daylight and he lay in the backyard of his house with no recollection whatsoever of how he'd gotten there. He immediately thought of nine jokes about drinking, and tucked them away in his brain so he could tell someone other than himself (although sometimes he did that because he tended to be the only one who ever laughed at his jokes – geez, one joke about a werewolf, a dildo and a full moon and suddenly nobody thinks you're funny anymore).

The nightmare he'd had seemed far away, like a memory he couldn't quite remember all the details in. He frowned and rubbed his eyes, feeling oddly well rested and was startled at the sound of someone clearing their throat; he turned around to see Scott and Derek standing there.

"Dude, what the hell?!" Scott said as he helped Stiles get up from the grass. "Where have you been?"

"Getting a facial." Stiles tried to keep a straight face as his words sunk in with Scott and Derek. He rolled his eyes at them when they didn't say anything. "Are all werewolves this stupid or is it just my luck that I get to meet the two most stupid out there? And no, I still haven't forgiven either of you for last night, that one really hurt and –"

"Stiles," Scott interrupted; Derek took a small step forward, almost as if it was unconsciously done to protect someone – who? Stiles? Scott? – making Stiles frown again. "Do you know where you were last night? Serious answer," he added when Stiles opened his mouth.

"No."

"Do you have any memories of last night?"

"The last thing I remember is I had a panic attack," Stiles said, trying to recall last night's events and avoided looking at Derek because he remembered that part of his evening very clearly. "I had nightmares all night."

Scott and Derek exchanged a look, making Stiles sigh. "What aren't you two puppies telling me?"

Scott opened and closed his mouth several times, and seemed unable to form any words; Stiles turned to Derek and raised his eyebrows in question. Derek looked at Scott once more before speaking.

"There was a murder last night," he began. Stiles froze, because he could already tell where this story was going – still, he kept listening, wishing for a different ending with every fiber in his body. "We followed the murderer's trail and – " He winced. "It led us here."

* * *

**A/N: A little darker than the last chapter, but just as fun writing :) As always, reviews of any kind is highly appreciated!**


	3. Darkness

**I welcome the darkness**

* * *

"Hey, Derek I brought Stiles with me," Scott said as he entered the loft two weeks later; there'd been another three murders and Stiles was getting quieter and quieter to the point where Scott was terrified every waking hour. Derek had been out of town, trying to find leads to what was going on and who was behind it, but to no avail – he returned after a week and a half in a sour mood.

Stiles shuffled in behind Scott, stopping right inside the door, staying quiet and watching his surroundings through squinting eyes.

"Dude, where are you?" Scott called as he went to check the kitchen.

"Here," came Derek's voice as he walked down the staircase, drying his hands on an old towel.

"Did you find – " Scott began, but went silent when he saw Derek standing frozen, watching Stiles through wide-open eyes. "What?"

Derek didn't answer, but dropped the towel on the floor and walked up close to Stiles with quick strides.

"Who are you?"

"DEREK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Scott shouted as Derek lifted Stiles up by holding his throat, banging him against the wall next to the door. Stiles said nothing, and if it hadn't been for his small frown Derek would've thought he didn't even know he was being held up by his throat at all.

Derek turned his head slightly towards Scott, who stood next to him, trying to get his hand off of Stiles – fortunately for Derek, he was stronger.

"Don't you see it?"

"See what? Have you been drinking or something?"

"This isn't Stiles!"

Scott paused for a moment to look between him and Stiles, before he shook his head.  
"You're clearly high on something. Let him go. _Now_."

The order carried through the air until it reached Derek, and even though he fought it, his hand slowly loosened the grip on Stiles until they no longer touched and Stiles fell to the floor with a silent thump; Scott helped him up and said nothing – although if looks could kill, Derek wasn't sure he'd still be alive.

As they left, Stiles turned his head away from Scott and sneered at Derek as his eyes went dark as the night. Derek shuddered, hoping Scott would see that that wasn't Stiles – and soon, before any more murders happened.

* * *

He woke of a deafening scream in the middle of the night. Not the kind Lydia was capable of – no, this sounded even more horrific and painful than he'd ever thought humanly possible, which was how he knew it had to be Stiles, of course; he'd been waiting on it.

Seconds later his phone rang, and a ghost of a real smile reached his lips as he picked up.

"I kind of need your help here, Derek," Scott's voice said. "We're at the clearing, and Stiles has lost it completely." He spoke in a lower register than normally, probably hiding from Stiles and hoping he wouldn't hear.

"On my way." He left the loft less than a minute later, but when he reached Scott it was already too later; Stiles was long gone, and Scott was passed out on the grass.

He saw a shadow emerge from the trees – or at least, he thought he did but when he blinked hard to make sure it was really there, it had disappeared.

* * *

"Do you believe me now?" Derek asked Scott later, when they were jogging around in the forest trying to catch Stiles' scent. Scott raised his eyebrows a little bit, as if to question if Derek really were that stupid.

"How'd you know?" he asked instead.

"His aura."

"His – what?" Scott stopped altogether to look at Derek, his brows set together in a straight line; Derek positioned himself right in front of Scott, and shrugged before he spoke.

"Aura, like a force field of pure energy that certain creatures –"

"I'm sorry, but creatures? What does that make Stiles then?" Scott interrupted, his frown increasing with every word, like it was an unsolvable riddle.

"Complicated. He's still Stiles, but he's possessed by a nogitsune." Scott looked surprised, and Derek shrugged again, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. "I did a little research after you guys left."

"Can we save him?"

"I believe so. But we have to get through to the real Stiles."

"And how do we do that?"

"No idea. Improvise when we find him?"

They started running as the realization that they had no ideas on how to do that hit them, both preoccupied with thoughts about Stiles, neither of them speaking.

"Maybe we should've called the others," Scott said after half an hour of searching without so much as a trace – just like when Stiles had disappeared a couple of weeks back. "They would want to be here."

"Probably," Derek agreed. "But what can they do? Well, maybe Lydia –" Derek thought out loud.

"Lydia?"

He hesitated a bit before speaking. "Well, I read something about love and bringing out the true person within, or something. I'm not sure."

"How can't you be sure?"

"I'm sorry but I don't have the brain of Stiles that remembers every single detail." He gritted his teeth at the jump his stomach did when he spoke Stiles name, irritated at how it seemed to suddenly affect him for no apparent reason – or none he'd ever consciously think of, or mention to someone, ever.

* * *

Lydia rang just as they were about to give up for the night – even though they never called her – and only said, "He's at the loft."

They both raised their eyebrows in surprise, and Scott hung up as soon as he had asked Lydia to get over there as quickly as she could; she agreed without hesitation and Derek ignored the unpleasant sensation he got at that, disregarding that it felt like a distant cousin to jealousy, mostly because he didn't get jealous much – or at all – and because he couldn't quite place it at the time.

When they reached the loft, they were all three surprised at the person they met; it had Stiles' body and voice, but it wasn't him – not even a little bit. Scott cursed himself for not noticing sooner, for blatantly ignoring all the signs that something had been wrong with his best friend, and begged that they weren't too late.

"Hey, Stiles," Scott said hesitantly to the thing that stood in the middle of the room, watching them with evil eyes, skin almost paler than humanly possible.

The nogitsune hissed, and Scott backed away; he looked at Derek, who in turn gave Lydia a small, but determined, shove.

"Stiles…?" she whispered, looking right into his eyes from a few feet away; at first he did nothing, and both Derek and Scott got their hopes up – until he pushed her hard, making her fall all the way back to the door.

Scott jogged up to her and helped her up, looking at Derek.

"Okay, you're up man."

Derek stared at him, confused and irritated and worried all at once. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. It's worth a shot at least?" Derek stood quiet, looking hesitantly over at Stiles. "Do I have to make it an order?" Scott teased.

"No," was all he replied, walking closer to Stiles as if he were in a trance; he came to stand as close as he dared, calculating quickly in his mind that he'd have the time to move before the nogitsune attacked – _if_ it attacked.

"Stiles, it's Derek," he said in a low voice, expecting a curse from the shadow, or at least to get a fist close to his face. But nothing happened, so he stepped even closer. "Stiles, can you hear me?"

A quiet whimper escaped the lips that belonged to Stiles, and Derek's stomach did a flip. "Stiles, you are stronger and you need to fight it."

Stiles started shaking his head, scrunching his face together and putting his hands on either side of his head as he squirmed; Derek acted on instinct and laid his fingers around Stiles' wrists.

"Come back to us." _Come back to me_, he added in his thoughts.

Suddenly, there was a soft whisper. "Derek?"

And Derek actually laughed, so relieved he felt like jumping in excitement all over the place. He didn't, of course, but he did put an arm over Stiles' shoulders, joining in for the group hug with Scott and Lydia, praying the worst was over but knowing it probably weren't; nightfall came and all hell broke loose.

* * *

**A/N: Finally _some_ Sterek, at least. Progressed a bit fast this chapter, but I figured with Stiles in real, serious danger, of course Derek would realize how he felt. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and as always comments are highly appreciated, xoxo**


End file.
